Great to see Graham Henry, John Todd and Colin Giltrap get knighted. Unlike many who receive these awards the three gentleman mentioned deserve to be recognized.

On another note. I know that the ONZ is supposed to be the highest award, but can we really be expected to take it seriously when Helen bloody Clark is one of the recipients?
Nobody could ever class her as one of the 20 greatest living Kiwis.

Brian Harmer

In my opinion, there are too many people who get honours for simply doing their job, and for which in many cases they have been more than adequately rewarded in the course of their business. Mere longevity in a role is insufficient for such awards.

Longknives

MT_Tinman- Agree 110%. People have short memories…the 2005 spear tackle disgrace and 2007 rotation/reconditioning debacle have seemingly been forgotten.
Many impartial observers might also say it was Craig Joubert who deserves the kinghthood for NZ’s win….

Jonathan Hunt doesn’t qualify for the ONZ. In no way is he one of the 20 greatest living NZers. It was a prime bit of corruption on the Labour Party’s part. Much as I dislike Clark, she was Prime Minister for 9 years, so has more claim to a place than Hunt. I also think that Trades Unionist isn’t worth his spot either, but there you go…

tvb

tvb

The onz is a font of honour for the labour party. Having Jonathan hunt there has turned it into a standing joke. I suppose he never did any harm but he did not do much good either. Apart from collecting his salary staying loyal to the labour party what else has he done or ever done. He reminds me of ted Heath a selfish pompous bachelor type and such people do not have to be like that.

Johnboy

“Ken Douglas, ONZ (born 1934) is New Zealand’s best known contemporary trade union leader.[1]

As President of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions until 1999 Douglas led the union movement in New Zealand for over fifteen years. His union career started in the Driver’s Union. He was also leader of the Socialist Unity Party in the 1970s and 1980s and stood for Parliament on occasion never gaining more than 100 votes in the Porirua electorate.

Since his retirement from the CTU Douglas has been active in local politics as a Porirua City Councilor (1998-), Porirua Licensing Trustee (2001-) and elected member of the Capital and Coast District Health Board (2004-). Douglas has served on board of Air NZ, NZ Post, NZ Trade and Enterprise, New Zealand Rugby Union[2] and Healthcare NZ.[3] Ken married Lesley and they had four children, Jane, Peter, Helen and John.

An acknowledged Marxist, Douglas has moved to the right over the last two decades and currently sits on the New Zealand Post and NZRU Boards. He is also chairperson of Positively Wellington Business and a board member of the Asia NZ Foundation.

In 2006 a two hour documentary was shown on New Zealand’s TV ONE about Douglas’s life, entitled “Ken Douglas, Traitor or Visionary”.[4]”

Hard to see what more one could do to be deemed one of the twenty most important New Zealanders.

dog_eat_dog

Johnboy

Very likely dog but I doubt he earns millions from doing the Wizards work as most of the rest do from their employment and in fact could earn a lot more utilising his skills if he was motivated by money.

Call me a cynical old prick but I suspect he was included by the rulers as part of their “feelgood quota” obviously not on account of his donations to their funding. 🙂

grumpyoldhori

Heh, DPF is keen on NZ becoming a republic yet brings up a list of those who have been awarded a knighthood by POLITICIANS.
Are some republican types confused, do they believe NZ will still have knighthoods for politicians to dish out to arseholes like Fay after we become a republic ?

[DPF: Titular Honours can continue, once we are a republic. The two are not linked]

dime

I am always deeply suspicious of anybody in the ‘arts’ world who gets a gong so it was no surprise to see that the “work” of Ralph Hotere (as featured on tonights news) is nothing more than the usual crap one associates with modern art.

I was even more suspicious given that I (and I would wager most people) have never heard of the man. The usual line up of art wankers spoke out in support of Hotere and lauded his ‘talent’.

A ‘talent’ that looks to be nothing more than what one could see scrawled on the side of any white building in South Auckland.

I wonder how many of our tax dollars have gone into supporting Hotere over the years?, any artist who depends on public funding to survive should be banned from receiving awards. In fact, any right thinking government would scrap all funding for ‘the arts’ immediately, if it is not commercially viable then the public should not be forced to fund it.